


Ancient History

by Evidence



Series: NatM Soulmate AU's [4]
Category: Night at the Museum (2006 2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Half-Assed Egyptian Mythology, Multi, References to Stillbirth, References to Suicide, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evidence/pseuds/Evidence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahkmenrah stands in the London Museum, and contemplates the tablet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancient History

Ahkmenrah stands in the London Museum, and contemplates the tablet.

He has done so for very many hours, tonight, and it is drawing close to dawn.

“What is troubling you, my son?” his father asks. “Your mother says you have been ill at ease.”

_Too many things,_ Ahkmenrah thinks. He has spent so many years in a tangled knot of gratitude and resentment towards this one object. It is ostensibly his, yet he knows very little about it, beyond the most obvious of its functions. It was meant to ensure his family’s everlasting life. Yet it also commands the dead. The gateway it once fit into opened the path to the armies of the underworld, and his father, too, built that. Instead of granting them immortality, it has left them enthralled to it in shadow. There are questions he has never thought to ask before, dancing in his mind. Inconsistencies disguised by pretty words and loving sentiments, and the infallibility of a pharaoh’s word.

Even ten years ago, he would not have had the courage to ask them.

Times change.

“Why did it fail?” he begins with.

His father sighs. But in the reflection of the case, Ahkmenrah does not see a curious boy, asking too many questions. He does not see what place exasperation has here.

“To even begin to explain such matters would require knowledge of things you are not ready for,” his father says.

It is the wrong response.

Ahkmenrah turns, and regards him coolly.

“Do you not know?” he wonders.

“Of course I know,” his father says, immediately taken aback. “Why would you doubt me?”

“Because you say I am not ready,” he replies. “For thousands of years, you have said I’m not ready. But I think, perhaps, it is not my readiness you question, so much as the consequences of enlightening me.”

His father steps forward, his grip firm upon his staff.

“I fear those consequences _because_ you are not ready,” he says. “Time is immaterial. I taught your brother too much, too readily, thinking it his due, and look what that foolishness wrought. You may have endured these long years, but in your heart of hearts, you are still just the boy who died too young.”

“Now you speak of Kahmunrah?” Ahkmenrah says, dripping with disdain. “In the hopes of making some pithy lesson to me, you will recall your first son, even when you still cannot bring yourself to utter his name?”

“He _killed you,”_ his father snaps.

“Yes, shockingly, I am aware of that,” he snaps back. “Unlike you, I was there in person for it. I got to listen to his monologue about armies and greatness and how I was standing between him and his glorious destiny. It was a terrible speech, and I deeply resent that it was the last thing I ever heard in my life.”

His father scowls.

“His ambitions for the armies which the tablet could summon were always overblown.”

“Why does it even summon armies, father?” Ahkmenrah presses. “Why might it be used to control those whom it resurrects? Why a build a doorway into death? What were you _really_ attempting to accomplish with it? You told such a heartwarming story to my friends. Yet it seems it leaves so very much unanswered.”

“Enough,” his father snaps. “You are worn down from these trying times, and you are not thinking clearly. That the tablet serves many purposes does not defeat its true one.”

“Trying times?” Ahkmenrah parrots.

With a sigh, his father steps forward, and rests a heavy hand on his shoulder. There is love in his gaze, and patience, but there is also steel. And perhaps just the faintest hint of fear.

“I know that, for those years, you woke, and you were alone.”

“For many of them, yes,” Ahkmenrah agrees.

“Can you blame me for my caution?” his father asks. “When you were in the tomb with us, you would fly into such strange moods. You once begged me for death! How could I risk that you might take leave of your senses, in our absence, and do something irrevocable?”

“You think I took leave of my senses?” he wonders.

“Did you not?”

He has, in fact, taken leave of his senses. He is fairly certain that for many of the years he spent trapped in his sarcophagus, he was quite insane. Or at least delirious. But he has that experience to hold in contrast to all that came before and afterwards. He knows what insanity is, and also what it is not.

“Faced with the prospect of eternal imprisonment, I do not think a man would have to be senseless to seek an _end.”_

“The tomb was not a prison. It was protection,” his father insists. “Look at yourself. Even now, you are slipping away. You snap and snarl as if you have forgotten to whom you speak.”

“I think,” Ahkmenrah says, very carefully. “If there is one of us here who does not know to whom he speaks, it is you.”

His father strikes him. A quick, reprimanding blow to the side of his head. Not hard enough to truly hurt, but enough to sting, and more than enough to have brought him swiftly to heel, once upon a time.

It does not have its intended effect any more, however.

“Do not do that again,” Ahkmenrah warns, very softly, into the silence which follows.

His father turns on his heel and strides away.

~

“You used to be such a well-behaved child,” his mother laments.

“I believe the key word there is ‘child’,” Ahkmenrah drawls in reply. It has been three nights since his father has deigned to speak with him.

He is beginning to think that he is the only one in this family who ever had any senses to take leave of in the first place.

~

He wakes the next evening to discover that the tablet is no longer in its place.

“It will be returned before morning,” his father assures him, and tells him nothing else.

“You must trust us,” his mother insists. “It is only a precaution.”

“A precaution against what, precisely?” he asks, and the air between them feels like a gathering storm. But he is alone, here. Most of the exhibits follow his father’s lead, and the ones he knows best are an ocean away, lifeless and unable to help him.

His parents exchange a glance.

“When you have calmed, we will discuss the matter again,” his father says.

“…I see,” Ahkmenrah replies, and turns sharply away, his cape flaring dramatically behind him.

He thinks he understands much better why there should only ever be one pharaoh at a time, now.

~

Lancelot is a strange man, in Ahkmenrah’s opinion, and a questionable choice as far as allies go. But he is nevertheless the first exhibit Ahkmenrah approaches, if only because he does not seem much taken with either of his parents, and possesses considerable amounts of martial prowess.

“My father has hidden the tablet from me,” he says. “Will you help me find it?”

Lancelot ponders the matter for a moment.

“I can’t say that I’m particularly keen to champion you,” the knight declares. “On the other hand, I think I dislike the other king even more. So alright. Why not?”

Ahkmenrah has seen great friendships rise up from more grudging alliances, he supposes.

They spend the night turning the museum upside-down, and in between his attempts to keep Lancelot from racing off after every distraction he sees, they also pick up a third follower in the form of a massive, lumbering, highly conspicuous triceratops.

“Marvelous steed, Trixie,” Lancelot declares. “Shame no one ever though to put a triceratops into my legend. Do you suppose they breathed fire?”

“I have no idea why they would want to,” Ahkmenrah replies.

He knows from experience that it is very difficult to do anything _covertly_ when giant dinosaur skeletons get involved.

“It’s less a matter of wanting than it is of sheer intimidation factor,” Lancelot explains.

Shockingly, they fail to find the tablet before dawn. He can't imagine how their mission could have been hindered by having the entire museum know where they are at all times.

Ahkmenrah returns to his sarcophagus to find it back in its case, as if it never left, with only a few minutes for him to examine it before he must climb back into place and await the sunrise.

~

The next night, he is out of his sarcophagus in record time – only to find the tablet already missing.

His parents are a room over, and by the sounds he hears, just beginning to stir.

There is only one possible explanation for that.

~

Tilly, Ahkmenrah thinks, compares unfavourably to Larry. But he is aware that he has a vast personal bias on the subject. And he supposes, considering her lack of familiarity with the situation, that she has risen admirably to the task of trying to organize and pacify the varied exhibits of her museum. If nothing else, she is perfectly willing to threaten almost anyone with a hammer.

“Where is the tablet?” he asks her, arms folded, standing outside the window of her little security outpost. He has no idea why hers is _outside_ of the museum.  It seems like it would be very difficult to monitor everything from all the way out here.

Tilly adopts an expression of exaggerated bafflement.

“I don’t – tablet? What’s – you have a tablet?” she asks. “I didn’t even know you had one of those. Is it like… a big one? Maybe if you could describe it…?”

“It is large, gold, glows at sunset, and brings everything in the museum to life,” he says. Then he leans forward. “You’re not a very good liar.”

“Um, excuse you, I am an _excellent_ liar,” she protests. “Not that I’m lying right now. Because I’m not. But if I was lying, you would never be able to tell, because it is impossible for anyone to tell whether I’m being serious or taking the piss because I tend to just randomly blurt things out and I always use the same tone of voice, so it’s like, is she being sarcastic, is she telling the whole unvarnished truth, is she lying, is she just really mistaken, who knows?”

“You are somewhat incomprehensible,” Ahkmenrah concedes. “I didn’t realize the effect was deliberate.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get for underestimating the pure, concentrated awesome of a fantastic lady night guard,” Tilly replies.

“And your remarkable beauty. That would be an intentional distraction technique as well, I suppose?”

“No, that’s just, like, good genes and a really top notch make-up game,” she says. “And don’t think I’m falling for this, with the thing you’re doing here. Right here! Oh don’t go all innocent big eyes on me, poor little prince, doesn’t even know what I’m talking about, he’s just naturally charming, isn’t he? It’s not working. Cut it out.”

Ahkmenrah obliges her, exchanging his look of earnest interest for something marginally cooler.

“Oh, shit. I take it back. Go back to the other look, Ice Queen, that one’s just unnerving.”

“I am neither a prince nor a queen,” he informs her. “I am a pharaoh. And I am getting very close to the end of my tether. It’s a long tether, Tilly. It has lasted me thousands of years. But I think I have finally started to reach the frayed edges, and do you know? I’m not entirely certain what will happen if I actually run out of rope.”

Tilly stares at him for a moment, and then lets out a low whistle.

“That’s terrifying,” she tells him.

“Thank you,” he replies. “My tablet?”

“Yeah, your dad’s still scarier,” she says. “I mean, I totally buy that you’re a bit off your nut, but it’s more like I could see you getting a really ill-advised tattoo or vandalizing some public property or taking some exotic drugs if you snapped, you know? Whereas I’m pretty sure the other pharaoh would, like, decapitate me or something. Sorry.”

Ahkmenrah contemplates her for a moment, and then turns, and looks towards the gate.

“Do you know what one of the most terrifying things about being a museum night guard is?” he asks.

“Looking at the security camera and seeing the triceratops in a room full of incredibly ancient pottery?” Tilly suggests.

“Not quite,” Ahkmenrah says, and then he walks over, and begins to climb.

“What are you doing? Get down from there!” Tilly calls after him. When he ignores her, she emerges from her tiny office, hammer firmly in hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Going out,” he says. “Under my own power.”

“Nah, nope, bad idea, you get back down here!”

She tries to grab him, but he’s already higher than she can reach, and he has a head start.

“It should be interesting,” he says, perching himself at the top of the gate. “Although, I hope I don’t get lost in this completely unfamiliar city and fail to make it back to the museum before dawn. It would be very difficult to have to explain how a valuable mummy managed to vanish from his sarcophagus during the night. I don’t think they’d believe that it just wandered away.”

“You absolute tit!” Tilly replies. “I’m calling your bluff! Now get down and go back inside!”

“I suppose you _could_ chase after me,” he muses, making his way down the opposite side of the gate. “But then there would be no one to watch the other museum exhibits. Like the triceratops. Since we’re on the topic, I think I overheard Lancelot saying something about arranging a mock fight between her and Xiangliu...”

“Nope. S’not gonna work. Get back here.”

Ahkmenrah manages to make it all the way to the end of the street before she finally comes tearing after him and tries to drag him back. In the ensuing scuffle, he finds himself impressed by her tenacity – she even gets him into a headlock before he can struggle his way free, and when he finally shrugs her off, she tries tackling him. It’s only when she almost accidentally knocks him into traffic that she stops.

“What happens if you get, like, squished by a car?” she asks.

“Nothing pleasant for either of us, I would imagine,” he replies.

“But could you die?” she wonders. “Seeing as how you’re already dead and all.”

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “I haven’t made a habit of flinging myself into traffic. My father might know, but he isn’t… _keen_ on sharing information of that sort.” Going out on a limb, Ahkmenrah adds: “That’s why he’s hiding the tablet from me. He thinks I’ve been asking too many questions about how it works.”

Tilly makes a face.

“What, really?” she asks. “That’s messed up. You can’t just, like, magically bring people to life and then begrudge them when they ask about it. Everyone should know what’s going on with their bodily business. How are you supposed to make informed choices about your personal health otherwise? What if you, like, fell off a roof, and you double died or something, but then you came back but your bones were like all mangled and everything because the tablet just brought you back to life like you were when you landed? And it was just all these constant nights of perpetual bone-breaking agony? That’d be awful. Or what if it brought you back but it only brought your mind back because it was like, forget this body, it’s died twice I’m not putting in the effort, so you were just this corpse but you were awake and conscious the whole time?”

“Too dark,” Ahkmenrah informs her.

“You think?” she asks, and wrinkles her nose when he nods. “Yeah, I s’pose so. Still. He told me you were more like trying to figure out how it worked so you could summon armies or something.”

He freezes, taken aback, and for a second it feels like his heart has forgotten how to beat.

His father made him out to be _Kahmunrah?_

“What?” Tilly asks, looking him swiftly up and down. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Wait, is that actually possible?”

Ahkmenrah inhales, shakily. He squares his shoulders.

“My brother was the one fixated on summoning armies and conquering the world,” he says.

“Oh. Awkward. My granny’s always mixing me up with my sister. It’s stupid, she’s like six years older than me and we don’t even look alike, she’s basically a million feet tall with flaming red hair,” Tilly informs him. “Plus she’s kind of high maintenance, like you would not _believe_ some of the tantrums she’s thrown over the years. She’s nowhere near as relaxed and unflappable as I am. It’s kind of baffling how anyone could mistake us, really.”

“My brother murdered me to take my throne,” Ahkmenrah says.

“Okay well it’s not like I was trying to start a sibling rivalry contest,” she replies. “Although if I had been you would have _definitely_ just won. That is messed up, right there. Are you sure he did it?”

“He did it in person. So, yes.”

They stand in awkward silence for several moments. Eventually, Tilly reaches over, and lightly punches him on the shoulder. Then she makes an explosion sound for some reason.

He looks over at her, baffled.

“Just… trying to lighten the mood,” she says. “Felt like things got a bit heavy there.”           

A pause.

“Can I have my tablet back now?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure. Come on. I stashed it in a box in the guard shack.”

~

He spends the rest of the night examining the tablet under the shack’s lights, while Tilly keeps up a steady monologue about everything from her family to her hobbies to her favourite television shows, whenever she doesn’t have to run off to prevent some potential disaster in the making. She doesn’t _quite_ have Larry’s knack for diplomatic finesse, but the exhibits are also much more terrified of her. If he was more inclined to observe the proceedings, Ahkmenrah thinks he could make some interesting comparisons on the rule of fear versus the rule of love, but he has enough distractions as it is.

Before dawn, he places the tablet back in its case himself, under his parents’ incredulous stares.

When his father moves to speak with him, his hand snaps up – an authoritative demand for silence that he has not used since his reign ended. It is a gesture he learned from his father, and yet, in that one split second, it has the desired effect; the man halts, and whatever words he had planned on saying go unspoken.

“I do not desire an army,” he says. “Even if I did, I would not be so foolish as to desire one that is all but useless in this world. Men can rain fire from the skies with the press of a button. No spear-wielding warriors will overthrow them through strength of arms.”

“My son-”

He clenches his fists, tightly, the anger in his chest burning like he has swallowed a torch.

“Unless you mean to apologize, _do not speak to me.”_

He turns, and there is his father – king of kings, greatness personified.

There is a weary old man, staggering under the weight of his own secrets and pride, and a world that has changed far more than he can fathom.

For several long minutes, they regard one another in silence, and Ahkmenrah wonders what his father is seeing when he looks at him, now. The dutiful son in him quails. _How dare you?_ that part of him whispers. _That is your father! How dare you speak to him so!_

In silence, he returns to his sarcophagus.

~

The next time Tilly takes the tablet to her ‘guard shack’, it is so he can examine it in peace.

“I still think your dad’s terrifying,” she says. “Just for the record. So this is, like, really extremely noble and ridiculously brave of me. Because he keeps giving me these angry pharaoh looks all the time.”

“I appreciate it,” Ahkmenrah dutifully replies.

“Is that a family thing? That, y’know, stare at people like you can maybe explode their head with your eyeballs if you wish hard enough thing? I mean I always thought my mum was good at it, but you pharaohs are in a whole other league. When you two glare at each other it’s like, I think if I stuck a piece of paper between you it would catch on fire.”

“I used to attend special lessons on it,” he tells her.

“What, really?”

With a sigh, he looks up.

“No,” he says. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I actually do need to focus.” With care, he runs his index finger over several of the hieroglyphs, and then turns six tiles in a specific sequence. He whispers under his breath.

There is a flash of light, and then Garuda appears in the shack between them. The little statue glances around himself in bewilderment. Then he staggers, slightly, as though dizzy.

“Hmm,” Ahkmenrah says.

“Did – did you just _teleport_ him?” Tilly asks.

“Apparently.”

He reaches over and touches Garuda, just to be certain that he is solid, and not an illusion. Or spirit, perhaps. His fingers meet warm, living metal.

“I didn’t know it could do that,” Tilly says.

“Neither did I,” he admits.

At her alarmed look, he smiles.

“I’m winging it.”

“That seems like a terribly bad and dangerous and awful idea,” she tells him.

Garuda looks between them and then nods in fervent agreement.

“Spoilsports,” Ahkmenrah accuses.

~

When he wakes up the next night, he cannot get his sarcophagus to open.

The mechanism Larry built him is still there, and still responds to his touch, but the lid is too heavy, he realizes. Something is weighing it down.

He forces himself to take a few deep, even breaths. Tries not to panic.

Almost immediately fails.

He _screams._ He thrashes, batters his fists until he is surrounded in a cloud of dust from his bandages, and he gasps in air but there never seems to be _enough_ , and there is no light, not even a sliver of it in the darkness. He roars in fear and pleads for freedom and calls for Larry, for Teddy, Sacagawea, Attila, forgetting in a haze of panic that none of them can hear him. He fears for one horrifying moment that it was all a dream. That he was never freed, that the past several years have all been in his mind. Only his hand on the mechanism prevents him from completely believing it.

When the lid finally opens, he scrambles out, pushing away the hands that reach for him. He staggers to the wall, stares up at the high ceiling and the bright lights, and draws in deep, deep breaths.

Finally, when he can hear past the roaring in his own ears, he turns.

His parents are both next to his sarcophagus, ashen-faced and shocked. His mother has tears in her eyes. Tilly is standing in the entryway, obviously alarmed. The lid of his sarcophagus is lying on the floor, right in front of Trixie and Lancelot. Trixie is holding a heavy-looking slab of decorative stonework in her mouth. Lancelot, uncommonly solemn-faced, gestures to her, and she puts it down with a heavy _thud_.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Tilly asks.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Ahkmenrah gathers the tattered threads of his dignity back up. He forces his back to straighten, his breaths to even, his shoulders to relax, his expression to smooth out. It takes a monumental effort.

“It got you all to let me out, didn’t it?” he says, tightly, attempting a smile and succeeding in a grimace.

No one looks any less horrified.

“Thank you, Trixie. Lancelot,” he says, and attempts to stride out of the room.

“That wasn’t fake,” Tilly tells him, shaking her head at him as he walks by her. He pauses, briefly, and then keeps going, not even bothering to change into more fitting attire before he makes it to the nearest exit and practically throws himself through it, out into the open night air.

He makes for the security shed, almost running, and he clutches at the phone in there, pressing the numbers in the sequence he knows. Just like using the tablet. But it doesn’t work, and he sits for a moment, lost in hazy consternation when an unfamiliar voice informs him that the number he’s trying to reach is not in service. Then he remembers – Larry’s phone was destroyed. Of course. He would have needed to replace it, after he left.

With the weight of reality comes better sense. Ahkmenrah puts the phone back in its place, and tells himself it’s actually a good thing his semi-panicked attempt at contact failed. What would have come of it? Larry would have flown to London, perhaps, at great expense to himself, and then he would have had to fly back to New York again, leaving both the tablet and Ahkmenrah behind after yet another farewell. It would accomplish little beyond a moment of comfort. Larry cannot stay in London, an ocean away from his son, in a country that is not his, with no obvious prospects to sustain himself on.

It is a good thing he failed.

It is.

~

He stares at the sarcophagus, before dawn comes.

“We had no part in it,” his mother insists. “Whatever our recent disagreements, you must know we would _never_ go so far.”

He wishes he did know that. He looks to his father, who stares solemnly back, as pale and drawn as he had before – as if all the hours of the night have not passed since his waking.

“It’s my fault,” Tilly blurts, startling them all. “I knew they were making a bunch of new displays and stuff, but since it was just cases and things, I didn’t think to ask a lot about it. I should’ve. I’m sorry, I never even thought they’d do something stupid like put a huge ugly thing on top of the sarcophagus. I mean, why would they? It’s just covering up big chunks of what everyone comes to actually look at, which is the, like, incredibly beautiful ancient coffin, not some weird ugly modern art thing on top of it. I’ll get them to stop. Somehow. I mean I don’t know how I’m going to explain the big huge rock lying like ten feet away from where it’s supposed to be, can’t exactly tell them about the giant triceratops moving it, but it’s not like _I_ could move it either so they probably won’t blame me. Probably.”

She pauses.

“Maybe if we, like, buried it in a field somewhere…”

“No,” Ahkmenrah says. “When I get back in, have Trixie replace the slab. If it’s still there tomorrow night, she can remove it for me again.”

“And let you have another panic attack?” Tilly asks. “Yeah, _no._ Bad idea.”

“I’ll be fine,” he assures her. “I was only startled because I didn’t realize what had happened.”

“You were screaming like there was an axe murderer in there with you,” Tilly says. “Even Lancelot was freaked out, and he usually only freaks out about existential things, like ‘what if we are all just dreams of wax figurines and not even real wax figurines’ and stuff, not loud noises.”

“If you don’t put the slab back in place, people will start asking questions,” Ahkmenrah explains, pushing past the shame her words provoke. “Particularly when you go out of your way to try and put a stop to the renovation. It may come to nothing. But the more questions people ask, the closer they might stumble to the truth, as well. The more who know about the tablet, the greater the risk becomes that it will fall into the wrong hands.”

His father clears his throat.

“Most astute of you, my son, and very correct,” he says. “Go with your mother. You will take my place in my sarcophagus tonight. When the horned beast replaces the stone slab, I shall be the one beneath it.”

“You needn’t do that,” Ahkmenrah protests.

“On the contrary, my need is most great,” his father insists, stepping towards him. “If I never hear you scream like again, it will still be too soon. Let me do this.” And then, so softly that Ahkmenrah thought he might have imagined it: “I beg you.”

A pharaoh does not beg.

Ahkmenrah goes with his mother.

~

The next night, the stone slab is gone.

~

“How long?” his father asks, his back towards him, staring out through the museum’s front windows.

Ahkmenrah follows his gaze, out the distant night and the lights from the city. He doesn’t bother with the pretense of asking what he means.

“Long enough,” he says, instead.

His father’s grip tightens around his staff.

“For all the years I have known you, I have never heard you sound like that,” he says. “You have always been… quiet. Like your mother, in that way. I did not think you had such screams in you.”

The shame is back, a hard knot of failure over his loss of decorum, in the face of imprisonment. There are no words he can think of that would banish it, or the strange tension lying on the air. Once more, he finds himself wishing he could only move forward, without stumbling backwards time and time again.

His father lets out a heavy breath.

“I am beginning to think you had a point, when you claimed I did not know you,” he admits.

“A lot has changed,” Ahkmenrah concedes. He almost means to make it an apology, but instead it sounds more like forgiveness.

“When your brother was born, I scarcely held him,” his father admits. He stiffens in shock, taken aback by the abrupt turn in the conversation. “He was our first. A son, an heir. Born more for Egypt than for your mother and I, and to Egypt we gave him, to nurses and tutors and training. We assumed he would be the first of many children, that those around us knew best what would be required of him, that we would have our time to dote and parent later. But then three more came and went without life. Two more sons and a daughter. All stillborn. You brother was… always grasping, no matter how much he had. He may as well have been someone else’s child, for how poorly I knew him, and how little either your mother or I raised him. By the time I began to consider that mistakes had been made, I could only realize that my supposed heir was unsuited to practically everything expected of him, whether as a king or as a son.”

Ahkmenrah feels the most bizarre impulse to say something in his brother’s defense. But he cannot bring himself to interrupt, and risk losing the thread of this wholly unexpected string of admissions.

“Still, I believed the throne to be his birthright, and I sought to make him worthy of it. I hoped more knowledge might eventually grant him the virtue of wisdom. And then your mother discovered that she carried you,” his father continues, his tone softening some. “I prayed and prayed you would be born healthy. Your mother did everything she could, every ritual for health or luck she suspected might help. When you were born, so small and too soon... you were sickly,” he admits. “You struggled for every breath. A fever took you. You fought, so _fiercely._ More fiercely than any soldier on a battlefield ever did. I loved you as I had never loved anything else.”

He turns, and though that love is writ clear in his expression, it is guarded, too.

“In my love, I was blind,” he says. “Not to your faults, but to the consequences of my actions. You were magnanimous where your brother was petty. Solemn where he was bombastic. Obedient where he was defiant. I made no secret of my preference for you. Long before your brother committed his most heinous crime, I had already disowned him, in spirit if not law. But it was when I made you my heir that I sealed your fate. I could not bear the thought of another succeeding me. You were my pride, you were the one who would have made the better king, I _knew_ it, but I forgot that the gods must always have their due.”

A mirthless chuckle escapes him.

“Your brother was firstborn and strong in body, if nothing else. He was destined to become Pharaoh – one way or another.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” Ahkmenrah wonders. Much of it, he has been able to parcel together himself, over time, but it’s never been a topic open to discussion between them.

“Because I have once again been blind to the consequences of my actions,” his father says. “I wish you would speak to me, and explain yourself – and so I shall speak to you, and explain myself, and hope that some part of you still seeks to follow my example.”

They stand in silence, for a while.

Ahkmenrah closes his eyes.

“Fifty-four years,” he says.

He opens his eyes again to see momentary puzzlement on his father’s face, which then slides away into grim comprehension.

“Fifty. Four. Years.”

“More or less. I don’t have it down to the day,” he admits. “It was a bit hard to keep track.”

“Oh, my son.”

He is shocked into stillness when his father embraces him. For so long, he went with very little touch, just occasional gestures of affection from his parents. And then he had Larry, who touched freely and with great affection. And when he came to London, and that stopped.

And now it is almost overwhelming again. Just to be embraced by his father.

“It is over,” he feels compelled to say, and then compelled to continue. It seems his father’s gamble has had its intended consequences. “I am not the same for it, but good things followed after.”

“Good things?” his father asks, pulling back to scrutinize him.

Ahkmenrah smiles.

“Some very good things,” he assures him.

~

He is unwinding the bandages from his chest when he looks up to see his mother, standing there, staring at the letters etched over his heart.

“Oh,” she says, he hand reaching, momentarily, in his direction, and then going to her mouth instead.

Ahkmenrah looks down at the smooth, looping ‘L’, and the curved ‘D’, the low swing of the ‘y’ at the end. He does not know what whim strikes him to look back up at her, and remove any possible doubt.

“Larry Daley,” he says. “Guardian of Brooklyn.”

His mother steps forward, tentatively, her eyes flicking up and down his form, as if she is only seeing it for the first time. Or perhaps as if she wonders what other changes might be hiding, unnoticed, about his person.

“But he left,” she notes, as though that is incomprehensible.

Perhaps, to someone who has spent the better part of her life inseparable from her own soulmate, it is.

“He has a life, Mother,” Ahkmenrah gently tells her.

“He has a son,” she recalls. “And a wife?”

“No, no wife,” he says.

“And his son is nearly grown. Why can he not be here?”

“Here?” Ahkmenrah asks her, gesturing questioningly at the museum around them. “How would he live _here_? Would he hide under the floorboards during the day? Try to find work in a country he does not know and has no prospects in? Deplete the entirety of his wealth attempting to travel back and forth?”

“It would be no less than you deserve,” she insists.

“No, it would be less than _he_ deserves,” he replies, but it does not chase the growing look of outrage from her face. With a sigh, he reaches out and takes her hands. “I want him to live. I want him to have a life _worth_ living. Did you not see, when he was here, how wondrous he is? He has saved me in more ways than I can count. The accolades Father heaped upon him were modest in comparison to all he has done. I would have long ago bestowed similar honours upon him. But he does not need monuments or tombs, and we cannot truly build them for him, even if he did. All I can grant him is what I have longed for myself.”

“Freedom,” his mother surmises, much to his surprise.

“Yes,” he agrees.

“Even if it means losing him?” she wonders.

“I will lose him. That is inevitable,” he tells her candidly, past the tightness in his throat. “It is only my privilege to have known him at all.”

With a tentative hand, she reaches over and gently touches the Name on his chest.

“A mark over the heart of a pharaoh,” she murmurs.

“Destiny,” Ahkmenrah wryly replies.

He is ready for it, when she folds him into her arms, though her tears are a surprise. They stay like that until his father finds them, turning a concerned eye towards the spectacle, and then his mother hurries off and his father goes after her, and he is left alone, half-dressed and suddenly cold in the empty chamber.

~

“What is the aim of your quest?” Lancelot asks him.

“I don’t have a quest,” Ahkmenrah replies.

Lancelot’s exhibit is an inexplicably quiet part of the museum. Or perhaps it is not so inexplicable, really – most of the exhibits are well aware by now that the legendary knight is an eager and oftentimes unrealistic combatant. His perception of the world is still coloured by the grandiosity of his stories, after all, with none of the weight of real history to ground him. The end result being that both Lancelot and the tablet seem to think that he should be perfectly capable of bouncing off the walls in full plate armour, physics be damned.

“Why do you do this _thing?”_ Lancelot asks, gesturing towards him with a twirling motion. “Are we all just supposed to pretend not to notice that you have some mysterious agenda? Is it some Egyptian rule of etiquette that I’m unaware of?”

“What makes you think I have an agenda?” he wonders.

“The fact that you _do_ ,” the knight insists. “You don’t want to be here, you don’t like being here, you’d _obviously_ rather be somewhere else and _with_ someone else, you disabused us all of the notion that you’re staying solely for your parents’ sakes the minute you decided to all but declare _war_ on them and started enlisting co-conspirators such as yours truly, Tilly has revealed on numerous occasions that getting you back to your old museum would not be impossible – ergo, there is _another_ reason why you are here. There is a quest. Quests are what keep men from their hearts and their homes.”

Ahkmenrah stares at him.

Lancelot stares back.

“It’s more of a question than a quest,” he reluctantly admits.

“Then hurry up and ask it,” Lancelot says. “This bizarre existence you’ve inadvertently granted me is becoming _tedious_. Whatever comes next, let it come, I say! Enough dithering!”

“You are terribly impatient.”

“Bold, I am _bold_ , not impatient – it’s a virtue,” the knight insists, twitching his nose. It’s a habit he picked up at some point after it was repaired. “So… what’s the question?”

With an unimpressed snort, Ahkmenrah turns and leaves.

~

Sometimes Tilly brings in food. None of them need to eat, of course, but it’s often pleasurable to enjoy the taste, the scent, and the texture of the experience. And expectation of a good meal can even mimic the effects of hunger. London’s fast food is markedly different from New York’s, but it isn’t worse, although Ahkmenrah is occasionally confused by the alterations in terminology, such as the difference in ‘chips’ or ‘biscuits’. He hadn’t encountered a lot of food in Cambridge.

So he’s not wholly surprised when Tilly shoves a box of curry at him while he’s going over the tablet in her shack.

“Lance says you’ve got a question,” she says, while he tentatively takes a few tiny bites. “Do you want to Google it?”

“No, I don’t want to Google it,” he replies. Not bad. Spicier than the last kind he tried, which he appreciates.

“Are you sure? Because it’s really hard to go wrong with Google. Or we could maybe post it on a relevant message board somewhere, even.”

“My answer will not be found in a computer,” he says.

“Alright, but, so do you understand how Google _works_ , though?” Tilly wonders.

“In broad terms. The technical specifics escape me,” he replies.

“Well maybe if you just tell me the question, I could type it in and we could just check and make sure the answer’s not there,” she suggests.

“It’s not there.”

“Never hurts to try.”

Ahkmenrah puts down the curry, and gives her a long look.

“I’m not telling you the question,” he says.

“You really should. I’m disgustingly curious,” she admits. “It’s not even fair. Lancelot’s curious, too. Even the freaking _triceratops_ is like just sort of radiating this weirdly intense desire to know. I mean, she can’t talk, obviously, but it’s in her eyes. Sockets. Eye sockets. Half the museum’s been taking bets, I had to bust it up, the modernist sculptures had this whole racket thing running out of the forensics exhibit.”

He makes a mental note never to confide anything in Lancelot ever again.

“It’s personal,” he insists.

“Ohhh, riiight, okay,” Tilly replies, looking him carefully up and down. “Should we ask Web MD instead?”

He resists the urge to throw the curry at her.

~

“Why?” he asks the tablet, quietly.

The tablet, unsurprisingly, does not reply.

~

One night, he wakes in his sarcophagus, in the dark, and simply lays there. He keeps one hand on the lever to open it, and breathes in and out, slowly, until the air thins to the point of utter stagnation, and he can feel beads of sweat trickling down his skin.

It is only for a few minutes. When he finally climbs out, the chamber is still and silent. He can hear his parents speaking in the next room. He unwraps himself, stares at the lever, stares at the precise dimensions of his resting place, and wishes he could burn it.

He wonders what new box they would put him in if he did.

~

“Why?” he asks his father, finally.

His father turns to him, surprised by the sudden question, but not yet grave enough to indicate that he has understood it.

“My son?”

“I want to know why I had to go through it,” Ahkmenrah admits, forcing himself not to look away or back down. Not to run. “I want to know why I endured all those long nights of suffering. To what end? Why am I still _here?_ ”

His father looks at him with such sorrow that is almost physically painful to see. It is a relief when the man closes his eyes, his only hope for a reprieve, because Ahkmenrah has resolved not to close his own.

“Have you truly found no answer to that?” his father wonders, opening his eyes again, and gesturing pointedly towards himself, towards his mother, who is moving closer now, and towards Ahkmenrah’s heart.

The implied accusation stings.

“No,” he admits, reflexively raising a hand towards his chest before catching himself, and stopping. He clenches it into a fist instead. If love could have been enough, then he would be content. If love was the answer, then he would not be here. He would be in New York, though even now, he will not say as much to his parents’ faces. But love, as an answer, has never satisfied him – not when it is theirs, not when it is his own, and not even when it is Larry’s.

There are five Names he has worn, before this one. Five Names of five people he could have loved, and never even met. Love is not the answer; it is, if anything, an incidental mercy.

“You think you are the only man to wonder why he is here? Why he has suffered?” his father asks him.

“No,” he repeats, shoulders back, chin up. “I am not asking why I was born, I am asking why I should not _die._ It has been thousands of years. You said, once, that death would not take us. Why? What is there left for us do, what purpose yet remains? Why should I not walk out into the night and wait for dawn to take me, if not now, then a hundred years from now? I do not ask to distress you!” he insists, at the aghast look on his father’s face. His gaze flits to his mother, and he is surprised to see her more calm. “I ask… because one day, I will see the Name over my heart fade. He will go, and I will remain – to what? More years in the dark? Trapped in boxes and buildings, existing simply for fear of the alternative? _Why?”_

“You will not be alone. We will grieve with you,” his father promises.

“I was alone!” Ahkmenrah snaps, surprised to feel the sting of tears in his own eyes. He refuses, _refuses_ , to let them fall, but they resound in his voice despite himself. “For _fifty four years_ , I was alone! That’s almost twice as many years as I actually _lived!_ You can make me no such promises.”

His father’s face twists, and it is then that his mother intercedes.

“We cannot,” she says, to both their surprise.

“Shepseheret…” his father says, but she touches him, and looks towards him, and he goes silent.

“I have only ever wanted my children to live and be happy,” she says. “All my children.”

Ahkmenrah stills.

“Do not,” his father whispers, and is once again silenced with a touch.

His mother turns away from him, then, and faces Ahkmenrah instead, and there is a determination in her stance and in her gaze that he has not seen for many years. So many that he perhaps forgot she was capable of it. It makes him wonder if his parents have not changed more than he might give them credit for.

“This will be a long conversation. Merenkahre, my beloved, you may stay or go as you please, but you will not interfere.”

“Wife,” his father snaps, and his mother looks back at him, sharply, eyes like flint. “…I will stay.”

With a nod, his mother proceeds towards the display case housing the tablet, and carefully removes it. She hands it to him.

“This is yours, Ahkmenrah, and has always only ever been yours,” she says, in an almost ceremonial manner.

He turns his gaze to it as she begins to speak.

~

The tale his mother tells him is one he has heard before, but as he has never heard it before, from one who has seen all of it but never once attempted to narrate it to him. There are details filled in where before there were only shadowy omissions. In this telling, the story seems so complete that it is almost laughable that he has let the butchered, skeletal version he knows stand for so long.

It is the story of two soulmates, and a lost son, three stillborn babes, and one sickly, dying infant.

It is the story of a desperate couple, driven to desperate means.

“Kahmunrah was born strong in body, but weak in spirit,” his mother says, and his father flinches at her unapologetic use of the name. “You were his opposite. I looked into your eyes, and I knew, no matter how your body failed you, you had a spirit that would not waver. Even so, I did not think you would survive your first night.”

The story of his birth seems to be more or less in keeping with what he knows. What is different to hear is how his father went to the priests mere hours later, calling for prayers, for tributes to be made to try and ensure the health of his newborn son. He survived his first night, and his second, but then fever struck, and it became clear to all that the prayers had been denied, and death was inevitable.

“That wealth of spirit, it was what saved you,” his mother says, and he thinks she is being poetic, but then she continues. “Your father made a bargain with Khonsu, the moon god. We pledged you to him. In life, you would be a prince. In death, you would be his servant. The moon breathed new life into your failing body. The fever broke, and it was as though you were never sickly to begin with.”

“I don’t understand,” he admits. “I thought Khonsu only imbued the tablet?”

“He did. But so did you,” she says. “When the priests made it, I believed it was meant to be a reminder, that your life came at a price. And so it was. But when you touched it…” she trails off, and then shakes her head. “Forgive me. When you touched it, it shone, more like the sun than the moon. It is a link. You, Khonsu, life and death, day and night. Every day you lived, you seemed to fill those around you with vigor. And the tablet remained cold. Every night you slept, you slept like the dead, and the tablet woke what once lay silent and still, and was lit with brilliance.”

“I don’t understand,” he repeats, though he thinks he is beginning to.

His mother reaches out and takes his arm, squeezes it once in reassurance.

“We feared what it could mean, and we did not know, not at first. Your father threw himself into the task of unravelling the tablet’s secrets. But I was the one who sought to change it,” she admits. “I sought to find a loophole, or some other means of freeing you from the covenant we had committed you to. I feared that the magic of the tablet would drain your spirit away, until there was nothing left. When your father discovered the link between the tablet and the cycles of life and death, he built a gateway.”

“To summon armies,” he recalls.

“No,” she says. “The armies, those were the reasons given to the priests, to the advisors, and to your brother. But they were not the true purpose,” she admits. “The true purpose of the gateway was so that you might have a means of escape. By using it, you could pass directly into the afterlife. Instead of being bound into Khonsu’s service, your soul would be free.”

“But you would never let me go,” he protests. “I could turn to dust at dawn, if I wanted to. I could die any day. Couldn’t I?”

With a horrible lurch, he wonders if even that fate might be denied to him.

“It is the service Khonsu chose for you,” his mother tells him. “The tablet was the price itself. Every day, when your father and I die, we return to the places of the dead,” she admits. “We have never suffered as you do, because we are not trapped as you are. When you die, you do not come with us. You remain here, because your soul is bound here, to the tablet. If you should turn to dust, or if the tablet should be destroyed, then your spirit will – will also be destroyed. It is Khonsu’s power, and your spirit, together, which make the tablet work. But at the cost of irrevocably binding you together.”

“But that… that is…” he protests, his grip tight. He forces himself to calm, and find his words. “That makes no sense! I have been parted from the tablet, and it’s still worked. It’s a tool anyone can use, if they know how. It even commands those it brings to life!”

“No, _you_ command those it brings to life,” his mother corrects. “Because their life comes through the tablet, _from you,_ no matter how near or far it may be _._ We did not ever think it would grant us immortality,” she says. “We meant to be buried with the tablet, with you, and with the gateway, when the time came. But your brother interfered. Somehow, he kept the priests from placing the gateway within our tomb. He claimed it, or destroyed it, I do not know which. I am only grateful that he did not manage to do the same to the tablet itself.”

“In life, we never told you the true story,” she admits, with a heavy sigh. “We feared what effect the knowledge might have on you, and so we only impressed upon you the importance of the tablet, but not its true design. Once we realized that the gateway was gone, and that you were falling ever deeper into despair, we… faltered. We were terrified that, given the chance, you might choose nonexistence over the misery of your half-life. And we could not bear to let you. We could not bring ourselves to turn the tiles, and fall completely into death, when we did not know what fate would bring to you in time. Whether it would be worse to remain trapped, silent, in stone, with no hope of waking, or to wake in the dark, with only the slimmest chance of freedom. We thought, if nothing else, perhaps someday there would be a chance. We could not abandon our hope for you, even when you might have begged us to.”

His hands are shaking. He tries to still them, but they persist, trembling until his arms and trembling, and then he is on one knee, the tablet sliding to the ground as his strength flees him. A choked sound escapes him, and there are arms, warm and comforting, tears and pleas and apologies, his father’s hand at his back.

The relieved laugh he barks out breaks the mood from one of despair to one of confusion.

He knows it is at least half hysteria, but he cannot stop. The answer. The truth, at last. The gateway.

The _gateway._

“I know where it is,” he says.

His parents stare at him in worried incomprehension.

“I know where it is,” he repeats, and turns his gaze to the tablet, letting tears at last stream down his cheeks as he reaches out to touch it, smiling tremulously.

He laughs until he no longer can, until all thoughts of composure are long gone, and then he simply weeps.

~

“I need to go to New York,” he tells Tilly.

“Well it’s about fucking time,” Tilly replies, throwing her hands up into the air, as if she’s been waiting ever since he arrived here for him to say those words. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He smiles his gratitude, and she does a double-take.

“Holy shitsnacks, it’s like seeing the sun come up,” she declares.

“Not for a few hours yet,” he replies, and turns to head back inside. He needs to speak with the other exhibits, after all, and see if any of them want to come along for the ride.

~

_“Finally,_ ” Lancelot says.

“Believe me, you really haven’t been waiting all that long,” Ahkmenrah replies.

“So what was your question?” the knight asks, expectantly.

“How to build a pyramid,” he replies.

“Ha ha, very funny. Now what was the real question. Come on, man, there are _bets_ riding on this.”

“What is the square root of pi?”

“You did not subject us all to your horrifically gloomy mood for years to find out about _dessert_.”

“Why are we all really here? What does it all mean?”

“Now you’re just mocking me.”

Lancelot pouts, ridiculously, and Ahkmenrah smirks at him.

“Would you like to see New York?” he asks. “There might be a quest or two in it, if you’re bold enough.”

“That sounded suspiciously like a challenge.”

“Probably because it was,” he agrees, and doesn’t bother to wait for an answer.

~

Ahkmenrah doesn’t speak triceratops.

But with the way Trixie follows them around, without fail, any time she spots one of them, he supposes he doesn’t really need to.

~

“You do realize that only the most batshit exhibit on the planet would include an ancient Egyptian mummy, a ridiculously complete dinosaur fossil, and a wax model of a fictional knight?” Tilly asks him.

Ahkmenrah smiles.

“That’s not gonna work. It doesn’t magically make it any more logical just because you look at me like that, with your weirdly pretty face all, like, lit up with inner peace and serenity and benevolence, like ‘oh, Tilly, I know you’re going to do this incredibly difficult and ridiculous thing for me because we’re super magical museum friends and you’re practically a goddess like one of the creepy statues but with all your limbs intact’ like sorry mate, but that’s not how the real world rolls, and I’m not that big of a pushover.”

“I suppose I could try teleporting them,” he muses. “Of course, it will be complicated, especially with the time differences. I might end up just accidentally dropping everyone onto the moon.”

“Oh fucking hell, _fine_ , I’ll work it out,” she snaps. “But you owe me.”

“Undoubtedly,” he agrees.

~

“I’ll see you again,” he promises his parents.

“Don’t take too long,” his father beseeches.

His mother leans in to kiss his cheek.

“Don’t rush yourself,” she whispers.

~

Ahkmenrah wakes in the dark, carefully opens the lid of his sarcophagus, and is amazed by the sense of _warmth_ that washes over him as he stares at the familiar confines of the Ancient Egypt exhibit in the National Museum of History.

He all but leaps into action, dressing in record time, checking the tablet in its place and then flying downstairs. Tilly, as promised, has arranged everything for the party. The other exhibits are beginning to stir – some with ease, others with obvious signs of confusion. Teddy blinks at him from atop Texas, as the horse snorts and gives a gentle shake of his mane.

“How long has it been?” he asks.

“A few years,” Ahkmenrah tells him. Then he jumps a little as Rexy butts him with his nose, and with a smile, goes to start the music.

It’s meant to be a signal – a sort of call together, and it has its intended effect, as sooner or later all the exhibits make their way to the front lobby to join in the unexpected celebration. Trixie comes thundering in and Lancelot wanders up from the extra storage unit he’d smuggled himself into, Sacagawea rushes to Teddy and Attila nearly tackles Ahkmenrah, the animals and Civil War soldiers and Vikings congregate in an enthusiastic hubbub, Tilly emerges with Director McPhee, and a certain Roman general arrives hand-in-hand with a certain cowboy.

Somehow, any questions of how or why seem to dissolve into the simple joy of the party. Tilly dances with a Neanderthal and Rex frolics with Trixie, and Lancelot looks to be on the verge of striking up the most unlikely friendship with the Easter Island Head.

And Ahkmenrah DJ’s.

And waits, gaze flitting between the entrances to the room.

At just past one o’clock, Tilly gives him a sad look, and shrugs.

_Enough waiting_ , he decides, and hands off his post to the skills of the miniatures. He sweeps from the room.

No one asks where he’s going.

Outside, the air is crisp, the city is glittering, and it takes him fifteen minutes to find Larry Daley standing across the street, hands in his pockets and stubble on his cheeks, looking wistful and wonderful and too far away.

“You were invited, I believe,” he says.

Larry freezes. He turns, slowly, as though he is full of dread, but when he locks eyes with him, all he can see is an ache and a joy written across his face.

He means to ask for forgiveness. To apologize. To begin an explanation.

“Come here,” is what he says, extending a hand towards him.

Larry stumbles into his arms like an injured man, grips him like he fears it is a dream. Ahkmenrah closes his eyes and inhales, feels stubble scratch against the side of his cheek, and wonders how he ever thought that a few years wasn’t a very long time at all.

“I couldn’t,” Larry whispers. “I didn’t want to say goodbye again.”

“I know,” he says, leaning into his warmth.

“I didn’t want to make you choose.”

He pulls back, sweeping his gaze over Larry’s face, taking in all the minute changings, the subtle proof that time has relentlessly passed.

“You didn’t,” he says. “I chose for myself.”

Larry leans his forehead against him, and chuckles, brokenly.

“So you’ll tour around a few museums in the country, probably cause no small amount of chaos in the process, and then what?” he wonders.

“Then we’ll have some things to discuss,” Ahkmenrah admits.

“I could move to London,” Larry suggests.

“If you want to,” he replies. “Though why you would when I have no intention of going back there is beyond me.”

Larry stills.

“You’re on a limited tour.”

“I’ll let you in on a dark secret, Larry,” he whispers. “I’m not actually all that concerned with the interests of museum administration.”

The surprised laugh that merits fills him with a surge of triumph. He tightens his grip, tilts forward, and kisses the nearest patch of skin he can reach. It’s stubbly.

“Why in Ra’s name did you stop shaving?” he asks.

Larry shrugs.

“No one was around to complain,” he replies.

Well. That’s the saddest thing he’s heard all night.

He reaches down, takes Larry by the hand, and gently tugs him back towards the museum.

“And now you’ll have to suffer the indignity of having everyone make fun of you for it,” he says.

There’s still some hesitation in the man’s eyes, but as ever, he rises to the challenge.

“I guess I should have expected that you’d come back exactly when I have too much for it to qualify as five o’clock shadow and too little to be a beard, just for maximum embarrassment potential.”

“Yes, you should have,” Ahkmenrah agrees, with a smile.

Then he drags Larry into the chaos of warmth and light and noise, and it’s all he can do to keep a grip on him as they are both overwhelmed by his welcome.

~

The first few nights seem to bleed into one another as part of a continuous celebration. Nick shows up on the third night, just when things are beginning to wind down, and kicks them back up again. He looks much more the part of a man now, Ahkmenrah notes. A high-spirited, adventurous, somewhat flighty but good-hearted young man, who enthuses over everyone and happily takes over the role of DJ. Over the sounds of the music, he shouts snippets of the past few years of his life – most of which seems to involve a lot of phrases like ‘soul-searching’ and ‘finding myself’.

“What about you?” he asks, while Jedediah and Octavius abscond with his cell phone.

“Same,” Ahkmenrah replies.

“So have you found yourself?” Nick wonders.

“More or less,” he confirms.

“Good. Then you’ll take my dad with you, when you go back,” the young man declares. Ahkmenrah glances towards him. His features seem to be a mix of both his parents, his mannerisms come almost exclusively from his father, but there is a hint of steel in his voice that he is just the tiniest bit taken aback to recognize as his own.

“You don’t even know where I’m going,” he points out.

“Well, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” Nick says. “Seriously, though, if you break his heart again I’ll have to fight you, and I really don’t want to do that because you can probably still kick my ass, and also, you know, I like you. You’re easily my favourite pharaoh of all time.”

It’s ridiculous, but Ahkmenrah is nevertheless quite touched.

Nick bumps his shoulder.

“Go find him. I’ll play something slow,” he suggests.

“You know how to play something slow now?” Ahkmenrah asks, with exaggerated incredulity.

“Uh, it’s called diversification? I went out and found the music within me, and I am like a vast onion of complex layers, so there’s all kinds of music in there,” Nick declares. Then he shoos him off and, as threatened, manages to get some slow music going.

Ahkmenrah wanders past Tilly, who’s started rocking back and forth on her feet with the Neanderthal that bears a passing resemblance to Larry. Teddy and Sacagawea have found a quiet alcove and are speaking in low voices, hands clasped together. One of the Civil War soldiers is sitting arm-in-arm with a hun, staring up at the constellations, which are weaving broad patterns and dances across the museum ceiling.

Director McPhee keeps shooting Lancelot consternated glances.

“I’m sorry, but you’re not a historical figure,” he finally says. “I’m really not quite clear on… what all… you know. With that. Are you certain you should be here?”

“If you have a problem with non-historical figures, sir, we might settle it by means of a duel,” Lancelot suggests, with a smile that’s all teeth, and draws his sword.

McPhee shrieks and plasters himself against the wall behind him, and the knight bursts into laughter, along with several passing Vikings. He sheaths his sword again.

“It’s fine, I’m only jesting. Don’t panic,” he says.

“I wasn’t,” McPhee denies, shaking his head, and then jumps nearly nine feet in the air when Lancelot levels a finger and a stern look at him.

“Seriously, though. Don’t bring that up again. It’s impolite.”

The director nods emphatically.

“Always been a big fan of Arthurian legends anyway,” he promises, and Ahkmenrah picks up the pace just in time to escape the sounds of Lancelot whining about why they call them _Arthurian_ legends when there are so many more interesting and better and fabulous characters involved than _King Arthur_ who isn’t even that great anyway.

He has already had to endure it more times than he thinks is fair, considering he’d scarcely even heard of the stories before they met.

He finds Larry in the Hall of African Mammals, conversing quietly with Dexter. A few of the lions converge on him when he walks in, bumping his legs with their heads, and he gives them some acknowledging pats before he walks over to stand next to the former night guard.

“I know it’s a nostalgia thing,” Larry is saying. “But I seriously need to know where you put them. My house keys are on that ring.”

Dexter glances at Ahkmenrah and then jumps down, dashing off.

“No, c’mon, Dex!” Larry calls after him, and then slumps against one of the exhibit barriers. He looks uncommonly tired. There are some dark circles under his eyes and a heavy slump to his shoulders.

“You look exhausted,” Ahkmenrah notes.

Larry snorts.

“I have classes to teach, I can’t exactly sleep during the day anymore.”

“If you need to rest, Larry, then rest,” he says, slightly alarmed. “Even the rejuvenating effects of the tablet won’t replace _sleep.”_

“It’s fine,” Larry insists. “I’ve just got to adjust and, y’know, time my naps right. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“You won’t,” Ahkmenrah assures him, reaching for his hand.

Dexter chooses that exact moment to return, toting a key ring along with him.

“Hey, Dex, great, that’s… those are the museum keys,” Larry notes. “No, Dexter, I need _my_ keys.”

Dexter holds the key ring out.

After a moment Larry sighs and takes it.

“Yes, thanks, that’s very sweet. But I still need my keys,” he insists.

“Not until you leave,” Ahkmenrah says, keeping a hold of his free hand. He gives it a reassuring squeeze and then begins to tug him out of the hall. Larry follows along, tired and obviously a little irritable.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

Ahkmenrah doesn’t answer, but he does stop at the first comfortable bench they find, nestled near the planetarium. A beach ball goes bouncing past, followed by Lancelot, sword drawn and clanking at a run, who is in turn followed by Trixie, and then Rex, both thundering down the corridor with enough noise to wake the dead, if the dead weren’t already awake. And largely responsible for the racket. After a few seconds, McPhee comes chasing after them, in turn, shouting something about property damage.

“We should probably help,” Larry says.

“ _Or_ , you could lie down and _sleep,”_ Ahkmenrah suggests, herding him gently towards the bench.

“Yeah, I’m not tired enough to sleep through a game of dinosaur tag,” Larry insists, nevertheless letting himself be prodded into spreading out.

“If they come by again, I’ll make them take their game elsewhere,” Ahkmenrah assures him. Then he reaches out, letting his fingers brush through some of Larry’s hair. There’s a little more grey in it, now. Scattered here and there. He’s shaved, since the first night, apparently giving up on his momentary delusions of a beard. It makes the new lines on his face a little bit more noticeable. A few creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth that weren’t there before.

When Ahkmenrah catches his gaze, there’s something uncommonly self-conscious in it.

“I feel like kind of a pervert,” he admits. “Nick’s almost your age now.”

Ahkmenrah raises an eyebrow at him.

“Funny. He didn’t say anything about living out thousands of years,” he dryly rejoinders. “Did he stop by Narnia on his travels?”

“You know what I mean,” Larry says.

“Yes,” he admits. “Do you find me less attractive now?”

“What? No!” Larry scrambles back up into a sitting position, nearly knocking their heads together in his haste. “No, you’re – you look just the same as you always have. You’re… not even close being less attractive to me.”

“Good,” he says, and takes advantage of their close proximity to kiss him.

He means it to be more a quick gesture of reassurance, at first, but then one kiss turns into another, and another, deeper one, and Larry’s skin is warm and his cheeks are flushed and Ahkmenrah’s hand somehow ends up under his shirt while Larry’s rest on his hips.

“You know, it’s okay if _you_ find _me_ less attractive now,” Larry says, when his mouth is finally free to say it.

Ahkmenrah nips his earlobe for his trouble.

“Because I am so very obviously repulsed right now,” he drawls.

“Well, no,” Larry concedes. “I’m kind of overwhelmed. I should probably just stop talking now.”

“Hmm.”

He pulls back, unhappy with that self-deprecating tone of voice, and takes another long look. The object of his scrutiny still is tired, and older, and a little red, but he honestly can’t see any diminishment to the appeal here. Perhaps it is truly the nature of soulmates, not to be bothered by superficial details. Or perhaps it is merely that Larry has been cataloguing too many of his traits as negative, when they simply are what they are – and no one has been around to refute his fears.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

Larry blinks and then sputters, shifting uncomfortably under the compliment.

“You couldn’t have said ‘handsome’?” he asks.

Ahkmenrah shrugs and steals another kiss.

“Really, really, _ridiculously_ good-looking,” he murmurs, and earns a glare.

“Now you’re just making fun of me,” Larry says.

“A little,” he admits. “It’s still true, though.”

“It’s…” Larry lets out a frustrated breath, then swallows, and looks at him seriously. “I’m not gonna get any younger,” he declares.

“No one ever does. So I’ll be your twink and you’ll be my sugar daddy,” he says with a negligent wave, his lips twitching when Larry’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “It’ll be funny. I mean there is a _highly_ inappropriate age-gap here, and one of us does look incredibly unflattering in broad daylight. A predatory older man, from a ridiculously wealthy family, used to having everything he wants handed to him, going after an innocent young teacher who’s barely a fraction of his age…” he presses Larry back down against the bench as he talks, and raising an eyebrow.

“Stop that,” Larry scolds, half-heartedly.

“I don’t see why you’re the only one who can be ridiculous,” he replies, and kisses him once more, soundly, before sitting back up. “Now rest here. Or you can go home, if you prefer.”

Larry narrows his eyes at him.

“I forgot how bossy you could be,” he says.

_“Rest,”_ Ahkmenrah repeats, in a tone of voice that invites no more arguments.

Larry grumbles a little, but a few minutes later, he’s snoring soundly.

Before dawn his head has somehow migrated to Ahkmenrah’s lap, and it has been hours since anyone passed through this hallway in anything other than tip-toed silence, thanks to the liberal use of glares and threatening hand motions. It’s comforting and peaceful and serene, and he doesn’t particularly want it to end.

But, like all things, it must.

~

In the wake of the partying, there is definitely an air of expectancy.

Which is slightly odd, because there’s no reason for most of the exhibits to suspect that his ‘visit’ is anything more than it seems to be. Then again, gossip tends to spread like wildfire, and he hasn’t exactly done much to disguise the truth, either.

When the exhibits gather in the front lobby, several nights after his arrival, it is not with raucous excitement or chaos. The reunions have been made, the celebration has been done, and now they would like an explanation.

Ahkmenrah does not intend to disappoint them.

“So. As you all know, I’ve just spent the past few years in London, with my parents,” he begins. Lancelot clears his throat. “And the British exhibits,” he adds, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Apart from a family reunion, the purpose of my extended stay with relatives was to uncover as many of the remaining secrets of the tablet as I possibly could. Which, I am pleased to report, I have done.”

There are some murmurs of surprise.

“I thought you were just stayin’ with your folks!” Jedediah calls out.

“Four thousand years in a tomb is enough time to spend with _anyone_ , but especially your parents,” he replies, which causes Tilly to cheer, for some reason. That starts Laaa in, and then the other Neanderthals follow, and after a minute Ahkmenrah finds himself settling the strangest round of applause he’s ever earned. He glances at Larry, who looks a little perplexed himself.

“So you… plan to stay here, now that you’ve learned everything?” Larry surmises.

Ahkmenrah takes a breath. This is the difficult part. He shakes his head, and straightens, remembers far and away to past speeches he has given. But those were different. Those speeches did not require him to reveal too much or recall too deeply. They had required very little of _himself,_ in fact, vastly preferring the mask of his office.

This is almost the exact opposite.

“All of us here have lived for years,” he says. “Some only a few. Some, for decades. Some of us lived other lives, and some of us only recall parts of someone else’s life, or even a life that never actually existed. But I have woken with the tablet every night since it was made. I believed that my father created the tablet in an attempt to grant our family immortality. As it happens, that was… inaccurate.”

Silence. Expectancy. Larry is standing, though the man himself seems scarcely aware of having risen to his feet.

The story pours from him, then. The true story. _His_ story. The purpose of the tablet, the cost it exacted, the ramifications of his brother’s treachery. Only the most personal details are shaved from it – his lost Names, his longing for death, his confusion and uncertainty. But they seem to spill out in his tone, nonetheless, his words betraying the weight of years. It’s difficult, but oddly liberating as well. As if by telling the story, he is also somehow escaping from it. Or, perhaps, transforming it, from a burden of secrets into a simple accounting of the past.

Maybe Larry had a point all those times he insisted that talking could help.

When his accounting of the truth has finished, however, the room seems far heavier – so perhaps he has merely split the burden among many sets of shoulders instead of only one.

Perhaps it is all three.

“I don’t know what this means for everyone,” he admits. “Those here who once lived, before becoming exhibits, are largely incapable of human speech or writing, so you cannot tell us whether your perception is in line with my parents’. Blame our tragic dearth of human corpses. From those who have always been models or replicas, or miniatures, I have heard accountings of your perception of the past, and the hazy dreams of our daylight hours. But what that means is harder to know. Whether soulmarks denote souls, or whether they’re simply another part of the magic… I wish I could say. But what I can say is that there is a pathway into death. Anyone here may walk it, if they so choose.”

Larry has gone white as a sheet. Ahkmenrah gives him a reassuring smile.

“But before _I_ do, I would like to live. I know some of you feel as though your roles as museum exhibits are of crucial importance, and you are content here. For my own part, having discovered that I may die, I now find myself inclined to make the most of my time here. We may be bound to a strange existence, but that existence need not be a prison sentence. The Doorway does not _only_ open into death. Khonsu is the traveller, and he crosses the whole of the sky in his journey. There are other paths we may take, and I would like you to explore them with me.” He smiles, swallowing past a sudden hitch in his throat, and looks at Larry. “I would like to welcome anyone who wishes to make this journey. Though I cannot say where exactly we will go. I think it is a… quest, worth undertaking.”

The room erupts into chaos.

Before he can even think about reacting to that, Larry flings his arms around him, crushing the tablet awkwardly between them.

“I’ll go. Wherever it is, I’ll go with you,” Larry promises him.

“G… good,” he replies, letting out a breath and squeezing his eyes shut. “Because the logistics are going to be a _nightmare.”_

~

The logistics are, in fact, a nightmare.

Especially when the Easter Island Head decides he wants to come along.

 


End file.
